Sky Sports' Abigail Davies lifts lid on awkward Joe Cullen interview at Ally Pally darts
Sky Sports' Abigail Davies lifts lid on awkward Joe Cullen interview at Ally Pally darts
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Abigail Davies has opened up about her awkward on-stage interview with Joe Cullen at the World Darts Championship. After beating Wessel Nijman 3-0 in the second round, Cullen gave Sky Sports reporter Davies tetchy one-word answers during a frosty exchange. He then stormed out of his post-match press conference, accusing the assembled media of showing him a lack of respect. Cullen, one of the 32 seeds, was irked after being made the underdog for the Nijman match. He fumed: “I’ve been shown no respect, so I won’t be showing any respect to any of you guys tonight. I’m going to go home. Cheers.”.
Davies had some warning that Cullen wouldn’t have much to stay just before the start of the interview. She said: “As [Sky Sports commentator] Stuart Pyke was throwing to me, he did whisper in my ear that he wasn’t going to give me anything in that interview. “But, look, I respect Joe, I get on with Joe. I have no bad feelings about that at all. He wanted to put his point across. Do I think it would have been better for him to take the opportunity to say something like, ‘look, you all doubted me, nobody thought I could do this, now I’ve proved you all wrong’?.
“Yes, I do. As journalists, we all know one of the hardest things to deal with is someone giving you one-word answers because you’ve got very little time to scrape around in your head [for questions]. But I found it a little bit funny, to be honest.”. GET INVOLVED! What did you think of Joe Cullen's interview? Tell us in the comments section. Davies, who commentated as well as reported at the World Championship, has moved on from the interview and hopes Cullen can recapture the form that saw him come within a dart of winning the Premier League in 2022.
“We all looked at his numbers over recent months and that’s why we made the predictions we did,” she said. “But the majority of darts fans will want to see Joe Cullen firing on all cylinders because, when he is at his best, he is one of the best players in the world to watch. The performance against Wessel Nijman, I was thrilled that he’d proved me wrong because I love watching him play.”.
